M8D1 Questions Like This One

M8D1

Questions like this one make me wonder whether I should give an honest response or give the response that I believe is being sought by the question. In all honestly, my Minimal Statistics Baselines (MSB) is zero. I am honestly not committing to any MSB from this point forward; if I happen to be able to live without ever using statistical analysis again, then I will not be taking any action to attempt to incorporate statistics into my life. I do not intend to read newspaper articles with the purpose of understanding the statistics or look up research articles at a library for the purposes of understanding the statistical analysis.

However, while I have no intention of taking steps to have any type of MSB because of an intentional focus on statistics, I am well aware that I need to use and understand statistics to be able to function as an informed adult. Thinking about election season and the apparently at-odds poll results that are always being touted to support different issues, I realize that understanding how that data was obtained and analyzed is critical to being able to understand that information. As a parent, my child will take standardized tests, and I will need to understand basis statistics in order to understand what test scores mean. If I am ill and looking at potential therapies, I will need to understand the relative advantages and disadvantages of different treatment modalities, and understanding those requires understanding statistics. Depending on where my career takes me, I may find myself using statistics in my daily work, but I could also have a thriving career in law enforcement without ever needing to use statistical analysis in a professional capacity. However, because I am now more familiar with the different ways that data can be analyzed and presented, I am more likely to examine the underlying statistics used to support a claim than I was prior to taking this class.

M8Lab8

Excel file

1. Descriptive statistics will describe the data given. The data describes minutes (interval), grades (intervals), gender (categorical), and number of times that the students considered running away (ordinal).

1. Number of students = 20

2. Average quality time is the mean of the quality time spent and is 8.2 minutes

3. Average number of times they thought of running away is the mean of the number of times they considered running away and is 4.

4. There are 10 males and 10 females, which means that the sample is bimodal with male and female modes.